


'til sunbeams find you

by bastaerd



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: (more like admitting feelings and kissing about it), Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, bed-lending, coat-lending, pulling rank so jopson takes a nap, taking care of the caretaker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:34:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26745202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bastaerd/pseuds/bastaerd
Summary: “I’ll ask Dr. McDonald to relieve you early. He was busy when I spoke with him just a minute ago, but perhaps Peddie might take over for him in the meantime.”“Oh, that’s alright, sir,” Jopson replies kindly. “I wouldn’t wish to trouble either of them by taking them from their duties, nor would I wish to trouble you to ask them to do so.”
Relationships: Thomas Jopson/Lt Edward Little
Comments: 14
Kudos: 50
Collections: The Joplittle Fall Fic Exchange 2020





	'til sunbeams find you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Craftnarok](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Craftnarok/gifts).



> exchange fic (& pic) for craftnarok! i hope it does justice to your prompts, because they were some very juicy prompts. if you'd like anything changed, please let me know!  
> title is from "dream a little dream of me" by ella fitzgerald-- thought the notion of a Little dream was appropriate.

“Ah, Lieutenant. What can I do for you?”

Little stands in the doorway to Dr. McDonald’s sickbay, hair mussed from the Welsh wig he holds in one hand and nose red from the cold. He has just arrived back from Erebus, having attended a command meeting in the captain’s stead. Fitzjames is undoubtedly still miffed about Crozier’s absence, but less so nowadays. His annoyance seems to stem less from a perceived shirking of duty-- certainly he feels for the lieutenants under Crozier, who bear the weight of his convalescence, being one of two ranking officers left on Erebus and now in charge of nearly double the ship’s original crew-- and more from the responsibility he faces. The dark sky does nothing to mitigate the gloom on board either ship. Even Hodgson seems to have trouble fishing up anecdotes for the others’ amusement during otherwise quiet wardroom dinners. They make note, individually and without outward comment, of the captain’s absence. Little keeps up the ruse; gastritis, a particularly nasty bout of it that has Dr. McDonald concerned enough to make regular trips to the captain’s quarters and keeps Jopson occupied enough with Crozier’s care and keeping that Gibson and Genge are the ones serving the food and pouring the drinks. That the lie is nearly as unflattering as the truth, and that alone keeps anyone around the table from raising questions.

That is what brings Little to the sickbay at the present. McDonald smiles in brief greeting, but he is a busy man with an important job, and Little does not begrudge him for returning to his work weighing measures of this and that. He nods, once, cannot manage to pull his own mouth into an answering smile.

“Doctor,” he replies. “I came to ask after the captain.”

“Ah, the captain.”

Well, no, not just the captain. As much as Little is the captain’s proxy in front of the men, Jopson may as well be the captain’s proxy to the few who truly know of Crozier’s particular ailment. Thus, a captain whose health is looking up, who may not yet be back on his feet but may be doing a sight better than he was a week ago-

“Not much of a development on that front, I’m afraid,” McDonald answers diplomatically. “You realize, Lieutenant, that my profession precludes me from speaking candidly about the details of my patient’s health, even if that patient is also my captain.”

“Right,” Little says. He feels rather stupid for thinking to ask, but keeps his back straight and his shoulders square. McDonald spares him another glance, though, his eyes creasing at the corners with a fatherly sort of expression.

“I couldn’t help but notice, though,” he offers, “that the tray Mr. Gibson brought to the great cabin was half-emptied when I made my rounds there. I can’t speak to the captain’s plate, but Mr. Jopson’s was full, or near to it.”

He turns, stoppers a bottle, and crosses the room to place it on a shelf of many more differently-sized bottles. Little, even held at gunpoint, cannot for the life of him recall their contents or their uses. He spies the dover’s powder, and at least he is able to call to mind the numbing sensation it brought to him during his brief stint on bedrest from snow blindness.

“Is that the tincture for the captain?” he asks, indicating the bottle McDonald is currently filling, and, dropper in hand, McDonald hums and nods.

“It is,” he replies. “Now, I’m sure I can’t tell you what, exactly, it’s for-”

“I could bring it to him,” Little offers. “In fact, I’m headed there just now.”

That this is the sickbay and not the great cabin undermines the excuse as quickly as it came to mind, but, mercifully, the doctor refrains from pointing out the flaw in his logic.

“Would you, sir?” he asks instead. “Thank you, that would be most helpful to me.”

“Not a problem, doctor,” Little replies, and as he is about to turn and leave the sickbay, McDonald stops him in the unassuming way that he so often employs around the captain.

“Lieutenant?” he calls, pausing Little in the doorway. “If Mr. Jopson’s not slept, I expect I’ll have two patients to keep me occupied.”

“Do you have time to spare to relieve him?”

McDonald checks his watch, squinting at the face and pulling faces at it as his focus adjusts.

“I should be done with this by a quarter past,” he answers. “Between the two of us, I think the difficult part will be removing him from his post.”

That, he does not doubt. With a nod to McDonald, Little leaves the sickbay and crosses the ship. They are at such a steep angle now, Erebus and Terror are, that the men walk with their feet canted, one knee bent slightly so that they remain straight upright. Some discussion-- humorously speculative-- has gone around regarding proper posture; ought the knees to compensate for the spine, or the spine for the knees? Whether or not they have reached a consensus, Little cares as much as his surname would suggest.

When he enters the great cabin, the room is dark. No light streams in from the windows; in fact, all he can see besides the black of the glass is his own reflection, illuminated from the scant light of the cabin. The lamps are kept low, he knows, because the captain cannot stand anything much brighter than a dull glow, and so the light is weak and faintly orange. Outside, the few men who remain are celebrating the fast-encroaching turn of the year with singing and a pitifully-increased ration of rum, and the sound of their good cheer carries down the passage. Little shuts the door behind himself and closes off the cabin from outside noise.

In his infrequent visits to check on the captain (and the captain’s steward) himself, Little has become accustomed to all manner of undignified sounds. Strained groans and croaks, heaving, the sounds of a man in pain he cannot understand. All of it is quickly soothed by a low voice. Little hears none of those, at the moment, and though he is familiar with the quiet, this kind of silence puts him on his guard. He crosses the room, reaches the captain’s berth, and pushes open the door as slowly and as quietly as he is able.

The captain is blessedly asleep, and now with the door opened, Little can hear that he is snoring softly. How long he will remain so is anyone’s guess, but for now, he does not react to Little’s presence in the doorway. In the chair beside the bed, he finds Jopson, slouched in a position both uncharacteristic of a man who takes such great care with his appearance and very, very uncomfortable-looking.

“Jopson?” Little asks in a whisper which may as well have been a gunshot. Its effect is immediate: Jopson’s back goes ramrod-straight, his posture correcting and over-correcting itself, and he leaps to his feet. In doing so, he trips over his own shoes while turning to face the lieutenant at the door, catches himself with both hands on the back of the chair in which he had been sitting a moment earlier, and casts a glance over his shoulder guiltily. His stumble has not awoken the captain, and it is only after making sure of it that he turns fully to address Little.

“Sir,” he says, keeping his voice low so as not to wake the captain up by speaking too loudly, either. “I apologize. I could have sworn I’d only closed my eyes for a second.”

“No, no,” Little assures him in as low a tone. “I’m sorry, myself. I hadn’t realized you were asleep.”

Even in what little light there is, he can see Jopson’s cheeks go an embarrassed sort of pink.

“I hadn’t, either,” Jopson replies. “Not until I heard my name. Is there something you need, sir?”

It is then that Little finally remembers the bottle in his hand.

“Ah, yes.” He holds it up for Jopson to see, and passes it into the steward’s hands. “Dr. McDonald mixed a fresh bottle for the captain. I told him I would deliver it for him.”

“That was kind of you, sir,” Jopson tells him with no lack of sincerity. His tired smile is a little less worn at the corners when he offers it. “I’ve just-- well, not only just-- given him his evening dose, which finished off the old bottle.”

“A timely call, then.”

“Quite.”

They stand there, the quiet broken only by the captain’s snoring. He is quite soundly asleep, and Little is glad that he seems to be in rather less discomfort than he has appeared to suffer in the past week or so; for one, he has apparently been asleep long enough for Jopson to also close his eyes and nod off. Knowing Jopson, he had certainly kept his eyes open until the last second, succumbing reluctantly and unknowingly to the call of unconsciousness.

“I’ll ask Dr. McDonald to relieve you early,” Little decides. “He was busy when I spoke with him just a minute ago, but perhaps Peddie might take over for him in the meantime.”

“Oh, that’s alright, sir,” Jopson replies kindly. “I wouldn’t wish to trouble either of them by taking them from their duties, nor would I wish to trouble you to ask them to do so.”

Little takes another look at him in the low light. Exhaustion reads even in the set of his shoulders, in the way he holds his head, in the crease of his brow and the dullness to his eyes, usually so piercing and alert. Maybe to the other men onboard, it would be adequately hidden, but Little has accumulated many hours of Jopson-watching, spread out over time and in brief snatches here and there. Enough to tell on some instinctive level, such as the way he knows the alphabet, these little sorts of things. He imagines that Jopson could read those same things in him just as well as he now can, and would not be surprised if it turned out that Jopson could read them from the day they set sail.

What Little says, as he comes to the end of this particular train of thought, is “I wouldn’t find it a trouble at all. Dr. McDonald is due to make another rounds shortly, anyway, so you won’t be leaving the captain unattended for an undue amount of time-- certainly not longer than it takes to take the laundry out.”

Jopson hums, rubs at one eye. Little can see him visibly stifle a yawn, his throat moving around it and his eyes going briefly shiny. Enough is enough, he decides.

“Mr. Jopson, you are to retire to your cabin,” he addresses the steward. “If I see you here before you’ve gotten at least six hours of sleep, I will report you to Captain Fitzjames.” His best captainly voice is seriously undermined by the whisper he keeps, so as not to wake the real captain, soundly asleep for the first time in God-knows-how-long and a considerable relief to all three of them. Even if he spoke in the full body of his voice, his words would still have a hollow ring to them. He would never invite or prescribe punishment for this, not for Jopson going above and beyond his duties to the point of exhaustion, and he knows that Fitzjames would be of the same opinion, were he to take this to him.

“Is it to be dereliction of duty one way or the other, then, sir?” Jopson’s voice is more teasing than reprimanding, but it lacks a lightness to it that does not go unnoticed. “Whether I follow the order and leave the captain, or disobey and remain here?”

“As the officer issuing the order, I will assume all responsibility-- and consequence, should there be any. But anyone would agree with me when I say you need rest, more than the captain needs to be watched in his sleep for this half-hour before the doctor comes to call.”

When Jopson makes no move to leave, but his eyelids droop sleepily, Little steadies him with his hands on either of Jopson’s shoulders. He tells himself that he has seen the captain make this very gesture, and therefore his doing so is neither out of place nor motivated by something so nefarious as the desire to have his hands on Jopson’s shoulders.

“That _is_ an order, Jopson,” he tells him. “Don’t mistake me.”

“Never have,” Jopson answers, and something in his eyes, under the cloud of exhaustion, makes Little wonder if perhaps he does not only mean now. “... Sir.”

They both risk a glance over to the captain, as if looking too loudly, somehow, might wake him. Predictably, it does not. Jopson allows Little to steer him by the shoulders out of the room in what would be a comical sort of waltz if one of them was not asleep on his feet and if the other was more graceful on his own. As it is, Little is the one who risks tripping, and Jopson, even as tired as he is, remembers to pick his feet up as he takes a step; it could almost bring him to jealousy, the way Jopson retains his perfect poise while Little feels he struggles to employ it, himself, even under the best of conditions. Instead, he forgets entirely about comparing himself to the steward and loses himself in his thoughts about Thomas himself, his handsome face, his bright eyes, his jaw, his chin. His hands, and the way his fingers wrap about the neck of a bottle as he pours spirits for the officers…

Scolding himself for his inappropriate and overly familiar thoughts, Little returns to the task at hand. Once they make it out of the great cabin, Jopson guides himself of his own volition. He makes it halfway down the dark finished wood of the passageway, and that is where he begins to tip to the side ever so slightly with each step. Terror’s tilt attacks him, and he trips; Little steps in to steady him, while he stands, one hand pressed to the wall to help and a sheepish smile stretched across his lips.

“Change of plans,” Little announces, before Jopson can apologize for overworking himself, and opens the door to his immediate left.

“Sir, that’s your quarters, if I’m not mistaken.”

“It is,” Little agrees. “I hope you shall find it a great deal more comfortable than your own, and nearer to the captain, besides.”

The idea, at least, of a softer, slightly larger bed and a wooden partition that shuts rather than a drape that lets in all the noise there is to be heard appears to be tempting, because Jopson remains quiet for a moment more. He repositions his hand so that it grips the doorway now, and then gives an almost imperceptible nod, as if he will drop the matter if it turns out that Little had missed his gesture of assent. Little would not press. On the contrary, he would do his best to avoid so much as the briefest of eye contact with Jopson after overstepping so egregiously.

But Jopson gives Little a look over his shoulder, and sleepy eyes meet his as Little helps him into the cabin, shutting the door behind them only after Jopson is seated on the edge of the bed and in no danger of falling again. Here, the cabin is quiet, the eerie stillness of the ship wrapping around the room without entering into it, as it so often does. There are so few men here on Terror that it feels as if they are the ghost crew of the Flying Dutchman, tethered forever in some sort of purgatory to their vessel, doomed to sail the waters of eternity.

Standing by the door, just beside it so as not to trap Jopson here like a prisoner, Little clears his throat and asks, “Do you need assistance?”

“Pardon, sir?”

“Undressing. For bed, that is.”

“Ah.” Jopson pulls another one of those wan smiles, tucking his fringe behind his ear. “Thank you, but I would rather remain dressed as I am. Wouldn’t want to be called to attend to some urgent matter before I could get one leg through my trousers.”

Jopson could look entirely put together even in just his nightshirt, Little thinks, but keeps that to himself. For good measure, he scolds himself for thinking of Jopson in his nightshirt, too. He gestures toward the head of the bed, where his sheets are pulled up and neatly folded, which Jopson has not even touched as he has settled himself stiffly along the bed, as if extending his legs would constitute some sort of imposition or breach of decorum.

“Won’t you be cold like that?” Little asks him, furrowing his brow in concern. He knows that, were it him on that bed, without blankets and without an overlayer, he would be curled up and shivering-- on second thought, maybe that accounts for Jopson’s posture. But the steward looks perplexed, in a sleepy way which rights itself shortly.

“I’m quite comfortable, sir,” he assures Little. “I would hate to be summoned and strip your bed by accident, in my haste.”

Ah. So this is Jopson making excuses against his own comfort. Little watches him for one more second, trying to find a suitably comfortable yet unobtrusive position on the bed-- there is none to be had-- and then, nodding to himself, begins to remove his coat. Once it is off, he spreads it out over Jopson; his eyes had been closed immediately prior, but now he opens them wide.

“Pardon!” he exclaims, as if it was he who had taken the jacket for himself, or perhaps equating the fact that Little has seen fit to let him use it to snatching it right off of his shoulders. Little responds by tucking the collar under his chin, so that the wool does not tickle his nose.

“What?” he asks, the picture of innocence. “You expressed your concern over the state of my bedsheets. This way, you can rest easy.” After a moment’s pause, he adds, more contrite, “And I hope you do rest, Jopson. You’ve been working hard all day-- ever since the captain went off his drink, and that’s on top of your usual fare.”

Jopson makes a soft sound, his eyes darting to somewhere off in the corner created by the wall and Little’s writing desk, atop which a report sits unfinished. “It’s not very hard work, sir,” he says, though the weariness to his eyes says otherwise. “Not the kind the men or the officers do. Fortunately, there’s not much to keeping vigil.”

“It seems taxing to attend to someone to the degree you do, and to do so out of care,” Little tells him. “I haven’t forgotten that you volunteered yourself to the job, before anything was asked of you. I’ve admired you- your kindness, particularly then.”

Now, it seems appropriate that the caretaker be taken care of. Little considers himself laughably bad at the keeping of things that aren’t frowns or an austere air about oneself, but here, he will try his utmost, because this task deserves it from him. Jopson deserves it from him; he pulls the chair out from his desk, bringing it to the bedside, and sits there. He sees something like a smile nudge the corner of Jopson’s mouth.

“You shouldn’t trouble yourself, sir,” he says in token protest, blinking slowly.

“There’s not much to it, you said.”

“Perhaps I lied. A kind lie, so as not to worry you overmuch.”

Jopson’s fringe has fallen from its place, cutting a black line diagonally across his forehead. The thought occurs to Little then that he might reach out, tuck that piece of hair back behind his ear for him. “It’s not excessive when one merits the attention,” he replies instead, “as I’m sure you would agree.”

Jopson closes his eyes briefly in a look of exasperation, but there is some affection there, if Little reads his face correctly. That and sleepiness. He seems on the verge of dozing off, if the fact that he has not gotten off the bed and handed Little his coat, folded impeccably, is any indication. On the contrary, he has brought one arm out and over it, so that he is half-sheltered and half-clinging. The sight melts any frost around Little’s heart. Sufficiently melted, he now indulges the urge to fix Jopson’s hair for him.

The brush of Little’s knuckles against his forehead surprises Jopson into opening his eyes again. “Sorry,” Little apologizes, drawing his hand away and sitting back again. The discomfort that he expects to see on Jopson’s face is strangely absent, though; instead, he looks deep in thought, perhaps conflicted pensiveness. Little knows it well from his own reflection.

“Lieutenants Hodgson and Irving,” he says at long last, and Little cocks his head to ask, _what about them?_ “I’ve heard you address them by name. By given name, that is.”

As he so rarely says things that hold no meaning, and especially not out of the blue like this, Little waits. The piece of hair that he had tried to tuck as surreptitiously as possible back behind Jopson’s ear begins to slide out of place, sweeping slowly, slowly, across his forehead again from temple to brow.

“Sometimes I find myself wishing,” he continues, and stops to wet his lips or to stall. “Sometimes I find myself wishing my name were George or John.”

His eyes go to Little’s, then, as slowly as that lock of hair had made its journey. Little surprises himself by meeting them.

“Or that you might say my own,” he hears him say, under his unwavering gaze. At that moment, the two of them recognize the threshold over which they both have stepped, some kind of point of no return. He imagines, again, the curling of the steward’s fingers; he imagines them closing around his hand, and he imagines covering those fingers with his opposite hand. He feels a thrill in him, short and sharp like the first splash of frigid water as he goes about his morning toilette, as he conjures the image in his mind.

“Thomas,” he whispers as he tucks the unruly bit of hair back again, and Thomas catches his hand, brings it to his lips, and lets his pursed mouth rest against the range of his knuckles. He does not kiss it, but breathes deeply against it, warming the hand with his breath, his thumb resting at that tender spot, the point of his pulse.

“You say it well, sir,” Thomas tells him in reply, his voice slowing and quieting. His eyelashes form dark fans against his cheeks, his eyes struggling to remain open.

“Edward.”

He hums, then, a distracted sound, before understanding dawns on him, and as he replies, _“Edward,”_ he feels the impression of a smile against the backs of his fingers. He turns his hand, then, brushing the smile-kissed fingers along Thomas’ cheek with careful delicacy, feeling as though Thomas had sprung his name into existence by speaking it.

“Thomas,” says Edward, hoping that Thomas might feel similarly towards him, because it is such a thing to feel. He could leap over the gunwale and push both ships straight out to the ocean; he could rip apart the ice with his bare hands and clear a route back to England. What keeps him here is the grasp of Thomas’ hand on his wrist, stronger in its gentleness than any earthly yoke and better obeyed. A flash of that delirious happiness is mirrored in his eyes, and perhaps the both of them are tired and not thinking as well as they should be, because with a tug Thomas coaxes Edward forward, forward, forward, until he is leaning out of his seat and over the bed. He puts out an arm, bent, to hold his weight as he curls over Thomas, replacing his hand with his lips. 

It is barely a kiss.

It is barely a kiss, but the one after it is, as is the one after that. 

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> as per usual, find me on [tumblr](http://edward-little.tumblr.com).


End file.
